Anti-racists vow to stop Nazi Tommy Robinson becoming an MEP

Anti-racists rally against Tommy Robinson in Manchester in February (Pic: Guy Smallman)

Nazi Tommy Robinson announced on Thursday that he is running in the European elections in the North West of England.

He hopes to rally his far right supporters and benefit from the Tories’ Brexit crisis.

Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) will be organising to keep the Nazi out of the European parliament. Weyman Bennett, SUTR co-convenor, said, “Tommy Robinson is most dangerous fascist in this country.

“He has spent his time terrorising Muslim communities for the last ten years and he is also a threat to all black and Asian people.

“The former British National Party (BNP) member wants to take the same seat that his former leader Nick Griffin had.

“They are both of the same ilk and should be stopped.”

SUTR is calling for unity among Leave and Remain supporters against Robinson’s campaign.

Robinson had hoped to stand as part of the Ukip's list after party leader Gerard Batten made a turn to openly working with fascists and the alt right. The party’s lead candidate in the South West is alt right YouTube personality Carl Benjamin—better known as “Sargon of Akkad”.

Batten was unable to push through a rule change to allow former members of the fascist BNP and English Defence League to join Ukip.

But Robinson is trying to carve out a space further to the right by ramping up Islamophobia. He said, “I admire what Farage achieved in the past, but he’s terrified of talking about issues like the Islamification of Britain.

“He won’t fight the battle for the heart of our country—in fact he bad-mouths those who do.”

Robinson has been trying to organise around a politically harder basis than Brexit, playing on far right and antisemitic themes around "globalism".

A big vote—even if he didn’t win—would act as a boost to Robinson and every fascist and racist in Britain.